Offering a foreigner's view on Korean TV and movies

Drama Review – Beautiful Gong-shim (SBS, 2016)

I thought I should get this out before I forget what happened, since it’s been two weeks since Show has ended, but life’s not kind at all to me in terms of time available to blog =( So here we are, saying bye to Show with some final comments.

Beautiful Gong-shim is at best, a drama with quirky male and female leads but sadly mired with Plots That Shouldn’t Have Happened. I think it’s generally agreeable that the entire makjang personal history of An Dan-te (Namgoong Min) was a yawnfest which for some reasons took a good three quarters of the drama to resolve the issue. It’s thus strange that being the titular character, Gong-shim’s (Bang Min Ah) character growth become a subplot, which had me scratching my head because isn’t her the main character? Thankfully both Dan-te and Gong-shim are quirky and they have chemistry strong enough to maintain (I’d suppose) the otherwise waning interest of Show.

I also appreciate that Ohn Joo Wan‘s character Joon-su did not descend to the levels of a typical second lead, who’d otherwise jeapordize the OTP’s relationship and/or prevent the main lead from recovering his rightful heir’s position. The bromance between Dan-te and Joon-su was cute in the beginning, but when Dan-te started being unreasonably suspicious of Joon-su (which he shouldn’t have! That was such inconsistent writing), the bromance just kinda died and the spark wasn’t rekindled even when they worked together to take down the villiany uncle of Joon-su’s. In some sense I did feel that Joon-su was short-changed in many areas despite being such a nice guy, and I felt sorry for him.

One of the most redundant character I’ve seen so far in K-dramas has got to be Gong Mi (Seo Hyo-rim), who not only does nothing to advance the plot, but also was never a fodder to the relationship development of our OTP. She hardly has any screen time, nor any proper development with Joon-su, as we were supposed to believe that they’re to have a loveline. The character appears to be chucked to the side at the expense of developing the makjang yawnfest, which is a choice that I can’t really comprehend.

Special mention has to go to both Joon-su’s and Gong-shim’s fathers, being the most unusual yet hilarious bromance that brinks on an extra-marrital affair. I didn’t know that long-lost fans of an idol of some bygone era can have such emotional reunion, to the extent of “cheating” on their wives.

All in all, plot is not a stronghold of Show, although it did give us some interesting characters. I’d say it’s probably a first and last to have a character like An Dan-te who picks up food which kids dropped onto the ground…and eat it in front of the kids. It’s also rare to have a female lead who’s image change only comes at the last episode, signifying that the love between the OTP is beyond skin deep. A drama to watch for quirky characters, but don’t expect too much from the overall story.